By Morgan Lee
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) --Alec Baldwin urged a New Mexico judge on Friday to stand by her decision to skuttle his trial and dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against the actor in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie.
State District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case against Baldwin halfway through a trial in July based on the withholding of evidence by police and prosecutors from the defense in the 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film “Rust.”
The charge against Baldwin was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it can’t be revived once any appeals of the decision are exhausted.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey recently asked the judge to reconsider, arguing that there were insufficient facts and that Baldwin’s due process rights had not been violated.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer on “Rust,” was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal when it went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the revolver fired.
The case-ending evidence was ammunition that was brought into the sheriff’s office in March by a man who said it could be related to Hutchins’ killing. Prosecutors said they deemed the ammunition unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin’s lawyers alleged that they “buried” it and filed a successful motion to dismiss the case.
In her decision to dismiss the Baldwin case, Marlowe Sommer described “egregious discovery violations constituting misconduct” by law enforcement and prosecutors, as well as false testimony about physical evidence by a witness during the trial.
Defense counsel says that prosecutors tried to establish a link between the live ammo on set and Gutierrez-Reed, to drive home the argument that Baldwin should have recognized the armorer’s blundering youth and inexperience.
“Baldwin was entitled to pursue the truth at trial, especially after he requested to see ‘all rounds, casings and deconstructed rounds’ in the state’s possession,” the new court filing by defense attorneys states. “Yet the state deliberately withheld the evidence that Baldwin had requested.”
“Rust” movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is serving an 18-month sentence on a conviction for involuntary manslaughter. She was accused of flouting standard safety protocols and missing multiple opportunities to detect forbidden live ammunition on set.
Assistant director and safety coordinator David Halls pleaded no contest to the negligent use of a deadly weapon and was sentenced to six months of unsupervised probation. A no contest plea isn’t an admission of guilt but is treated as such for sentencing purposes.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More